New York New York! Part 1
While I was looking for my next snark, I was surprised to find that this one had only been tackled once, and not since 2008. I guess we just don’t ❤ NYC like Ann. Plus, I had some artsy lolcats leftover from Rosie, and honestly, I didn't feel up to fifteen chapters of any particular sitter without inspiration.
Anyway, my impressions before rereading: Claudia’s plot annoys me, but probably in part because of some of my own creative anxieties; Kristy’s plot is boring but not bossy; the baby-sitting “mystery” is dumb but at least MA doesn’t spend the whole book pining for Logan, and Jessi’s “romantic” plot is HILARIOUS. Seriously, next to Quint, Logan looks almost like a real boy. Oh, and Dawn’s there. For real, even the blurb struggles with Dawn-she “eats her way through the city” which covers about 4 pages of her chapters. And makes her sound like Dawnzilla. “RAWWR! EMPIRE STATE BUILDING NOT ORGANIC! DAWNZILLA SMASH. SMASH AND RECYCLE.” (Okay, so Dawnzilla talks like the Hulk. I don't even know if Godzilla talks.)
Cover: Oh, my lord. Where to begin?
Dawn’s head-to-toe denim ensemble? (Which, as the lovely mizzmarvel once put it, looks not so much like “California Casual” as “hiding a tween pregnancy.”) Claud’s chilly teal shorts and black tights combo? Kristy’s old man loafers? Stacey’s not-found-in-nature crouch, and the fact that she looks like she’s wearing a diaper? The weird staging where it vaguely looks like Jessi is a contortionist? Mallory’s sad attempt to be cool?
No “grateful acknowledgment” so presumably Ann wrote this because she ❤ NYC. Despite the fact that there are glaring factual errors and common sense lapses that I, who visited New York once as an adult, can catch.
Also, interior illustrations by Henry R. Martin, aka Ann’s dad. I looked up some of his New Yorker cartoons, and they’re fine-I mean, they look like old-school New Yorker cartoons
but these are. . .pretty bad.
Marginally better than I could do, and I’m awful at drawing. (For real, last spring I took a class with Alison Bechdel where I had to write and draw a short graphic memoir, and she kindly said not to worry because my drawings had a certain “primitive charm.” LOL forever.)
Ack, four full pages of Claudia writing. Maybe that’s why it’s only been snarked once; that is a rough start. Anyway, Claudia has decided it’s time to take herself seriously as an artist, and she wants to take “serious” art classes at the Fine Arts League of New York, which I assume is a serial-numbers-filed-off stand-in for the Art Students League of New York. (Ann changes the weirdest details sometimes.) Also, she makes a point of name-dropping not only McKenzie Clark, but someone named “Nina Paryda.” I googled just for the hell of it and apparently NO ONE of that name exists, which is pretty damn impressive. Anyway, the BSC has another “glorious” two-week school break coming up (seriously, when do they actually learn anything?), so Claudia makes her move to convince her parents.
Anyway, her plan is to invite herself to stay at Mr. McGill’s, and her parents aren’t thrilled until he calls up “personally” to speak to her parents. And then he says “any of Stacey’s other friends” would be welcome to come to, and you know what, with an invite like that, he deserves whatever he gets.
Mallory wants to take lessons too, and her parents are all “Whatever.” Granted, Arts League classes are comparatively super-affordable, but that’s still probably at least $100 or so on a whim.
And of course, Claudia will make them do one of those damned trip diaries.
Mary Anne, who, you will recall, ❤ New York, runs around singing “New York, New York! A wonderful town!” Stacey tries to correct her by saying the lyrics are actually “New York, New York! A he-“ Wow, Ann, you naughty minx, trying to get that under the radar! Mary Anne says she prefers her version. When I was little I thought Mary Anne was just self-censoring because she’s a bit prissy, but actually they’re BOTH pretty right; for the movie they had to change “a helluva town” to a “wonderful town” for the production code, which is pretty fucking funny to write the week after fucking Tarantino got a second Best Fucking Screenplay Oscar.
Oh, Chapter 1. That’s right, we haven’t even started yet. Claudia finds out she’ll be studying with McKenzie Clark and starts calling him HIM in a caps, and then wonders if he’s married. Ew, Claudia. You are thirteen.
“By now, you might be wondering about a few things. You might be wondering what the Baby-Sitters Club is. You might be wondering who the rest of my friends are. Oh, and I guess you might be wondering who I am.”
To her credit, Claud explains the complex machinery of the BSC in half a page, although it still takes way too long to introduce everyone, via a “clever” packing montage. Also, instead of learning a lesson from Mary Anne being a jerk on their last New York trip, they’ve decided to all adopt her jerkiness and make Stacey approve their packing and weed out any horrible “boo-boos.”
Claudia is a pack rat (and I can’t judge-I live in fear of crossing the line from pack rat to hoarder, honestly) but she decides she can get by in NYC without three bathing suits. “Chilly” Stacey would be packing black leggings and stirrup pants (sexy!), baggy red, white, and black tops, and black cowboy boots. She might also sprinkle some sophisticated glitter in her hair. Even though Kristy lives in a MANSION with a MILLIONAIRE stepfather, she’ll be packing a duffle bag with turtlenecks and jeans. “When Stacey inspects Kristy’s suitcase, she’ll have to do some fast talking to convince Kristy to add so much as a skirt to her pile of jeans. Oh, well. Kristy may be a little less mature than the rest of us, but we love her anyway.” Oh, shut it, Claud. It’s great how wearing heels apparently is a gross affront to feminism, but not caring for skirts is “immature.” Shut it, Ann. I mean, Kristy frequently is immature, but not because she doesn’t care about being fashionable.
Dawn, who is “ individualistic and pretty self-confident” (ha!) would of course be packing her unspecified “California Casual” duds. Also, she is “gorgeous” and has “just enough freckles to be interesting.” Huh? Well, thank heavens she doesn’t have an offensive number of freckles on her “peaches and cream” skin. Mary Anne will be packing her “very different” clothes, so I guess that would be “Uptight Connecticut Neurotic”?
Mal would be packing the trendiest clothes she could find ( push down socks wooooo!) but “unfortunately” the Pikes don’t allow her to dress very fashionably because she is only eleven. The Pikes are not strict, but they haven’t allowed her to get her braces taken off early (WHAT? Who would do that?), switch her glasses to contacts, straighten her hair or wear “just about anything Stacey or I get to wear.” So, despite all evidence to the contrary, the Pike parents have a modicum of common sense and good taste? But Claudia says graciously she manages not to “look like a first grader.” Except when she wears her Mallory jumper and tights with hearts. (See, I get to be catty because they aren’t my BFFs. Claudia’s being kind of an ass here.)
Jessi will be packing similar clothes, because her parents agree with the Pikes on the suitability of plastic surgery and glittery spandex for the tween set. “This is interesting, because the Pikes and the Ramseys are pretty dissimilar. The Pikes are white, the Ramseys are black.” WHAT. Seriously, not only did Ann write that paragraph, someone (Sammie?) edited this and thought that was totally okay to say. WTF.
Claudia’s own suitcase will be filled with wild clothes and paper-mache jewelry. Claudia describes her eyes as dark and almond-shaped and says “I think I look exotic, especially with the right kind of make-up.” Which strikes me as kind of squicky and Other-y and yucky for a white author to have an Asian character say. Also, she doesn’t have any room left for her art supplies, so instead of packing better, she’ll just borrow Janine’s suitcase.
Chapter 2
Kristy wants to go to a Mets game and generally feel “grown-up and important.” How is that different from running the Brook like her personal fiefdom?
Actually, in this section, Kristy is charmingly kind of like a normal thirteen-year-old, being embarrassed by her family. Emily climbs around on Kristy’s luggage, while Elizabeth fecklessly begs her to be careful, but doesn’t, you know, pick her up or anything. Karen is singing “New York, New York!” Andrew and David Michael are riding around on a luggage cart. Nannie tries to corral them and I don’t know wtf Watson and Elizabeth are doing, because God forbid they supervise their own damn kids for a few minutes.
Jordan charged Mal fifty cents to carry her suitcase, and she is extremely put out. Mary Anne is ridiculous, and brought poor Tigger to the train station to say good-bye. (The Thomas-Brewers also brought Shannon for some reason, but at least dogs tend to like being out and about. Tigger is understandably miserable in his little carrier.) On the other hand, how boring is Stoneybrook that “everyone,” including the fifteen poor saps who just wanted a quiet commute into the city, is staring at a cat in a carrier?
All the BSC are embarrassed by their loving families, who are, admittedly, being ridiculous and paranoid.
Sharon offered Dawn and Mary Anne a two-week shopping spree if they stayed in the Brook. (“Overprotective Richard,” oddly, is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’s at home alphabetizing the sex toys for the week ahead.) Stacey marches over to tell them that Mr. McGill had his apartment professionally cleaned and exterminated, and why would you really mention that? Mrs. Ramsey and Nannie almost begin to cry at the idea of roaches, and Elizabeth actually does burst into tears when the train pulls in. WTF. I mean, I don’t really think packs of teen and tween girls should be running around a major city unsupervised for two weeks, but that’s on your terrible parenting skills and poor judgment, not New York. Let them go or don’t let them, but this train station melodrama is ridiculous. You’re not sending them off to war, or to be eaten by the Minotaur or something. (Oh, man, I suddenly desperately want some kind of Greek mythology/BSC fusion fic. At least then you can blame logic and continuity gaps on “a god did it.”) Fully half the parents are crying now. Stacey promises not to let them take the subway alone or eat hot dogs from street vendors and barely manages to leap through the train doors as it departs.
Luckily it’s not a busy travel time, since the seven girls and their luggage take up fifteen seats. Mary Anne studies her guidebooks, but refrains from reading out loud until anyone actually asks her questions. Attagirl. It’s almost like growth.
They arrive at the station to see Mr. McGill running towards them. This sounds dramatic, but don’t worry. That might be interesting.
Chapter 3
Mary Anne entry. She and Stacey have scored a baby-sitting job, and Mary Anne points out that with the parents paying for all the sight-seeing, she can spend all her money on crappy souvenirs, or possibly a charm bracelet.
They get to Mr. McGill’s and work out the living arrangements-Stacey, Claud, and Dawn will stay there, while everyone else stays at the Dakota with Laine, since Mr. McGill's swinging bachelor pad can't accommodate seven house guests. This is ridiculously generous of the Cummings, to be honest. On the other hand, it’s weird how the parents are so freaked out about whether Mr. McGill washed his dishes after the exterminator came, and not their teenage daughters staying with people they’ve never met or indeed spoken to. Dawn is already slipping into her New York terror mode, which Mary Anne is sensitive enough to notice but not sensitive enough to care about. (Then again, neither am I.) Mary Anne gushes about the Dakota, name-dropping Rosemary’s Baby and that famous people have died there, and I don’t know why Polanski can get a shout-out but John Lennon can’t.
At the Cummings’s apartment they meet the Harringtons, who are British and thus of course fabulously wealthy and dress their children like dolls. “Alistaire [age 7] was wearing a white sailor suit with navy blue trim, white knee socks, and black shoes that buckled at the sides. They looked a little like Mary Janes, only they weren’t shiny. And Rowena [age 4] was wearing a white sailor dress, similar to Alistaire’s suit, white tights, red Mary Janes and a red hat.” A straw hat with trailing red ribbons, in fact.
And of course, the Harringtons need a sitter/tour guide for their kids, and of course, Laine introduces the BSC, and of course these fabulously wealthy dignitaries with sensitive positions are totally cool with paying a couple of suburban barely-teenagers to squire their kids around NYC.
Stacey and Mary Anne get the job, and will apparently get paid an unbelievable amount, although it’s probably a whopping $5 an hour, considering how nuts they went for their crap wages in Kristy’s Big Day. Kristy and Jessi want to sightsee without kids (blasphemy!), Claudia and Mal have their classes, and Dawn is afraid to leave the building.
Chapter 4
Dawn entry, in which she admits she’s felt funny about this trip the whole time and is scared to death. And you know, I do feel sympathy for the sentiment, but Ms. Confident and Laid-Back handles it all in about the most obnoxious, entitled, and melodramatic way, and it’s exhausting to read.
Before the trip, Dawn and Stacey squabble about whether NYC is a piss-ridden stench hole full of murderers, pickpockets, and giant sewer alligators, or a diverse cultural mecca. Girls, girls, you’re both pretty blonde right. Well, except for the alligators.
Dawn is literally proud of herself for getting on the train without hysterics, and then freaks out when she gets to Grand Central Station and sees police officers and people sleeping on benches. (You know, I don’t even necessarily know that she means homeless people, who are probably less likely to be inside at midday, or if she’s just scared of people waiting to get the Amtrak to Philly or DC. But neither is really endearing.) Then she shrieks, making the others think she’s been robbed or something, because she spies a giant “cockroach” which turns out to be a candy bar wrapper, confirmed by Claudia “CSI: High Fructose Corn Syrup Unit” Kishi.
Dawn continues to shriek as they meet Mr. McGill, when she overhears construction noises (do they not have construction in the Brook?) and sees a guy from “New York’s Ten Most Wanted” list who turns out to be a police officer. So she manages not to predict that the cabbie will rob and slaughter them, or to nag Mr. McGill about his apartment’s security.
Dawn debates volunteering to stay at the Dakota because of the guards, but doesn’t want to leave Mr. McGill’s, and also thinks Stacey will protect her. But everyone goes over to the Cummings’s anyway, although Dawn briefly considers asking to keep Ed company in his apartment all afternoon. Conveniently, he has “errands.” I hope they involve knocking back a few drinks, because he’s going to need them.
Dawn continues to freak out everywhere-like, I could get being scared of the subway or nervous on the streets, but inside the Dakota? Inside restaurants? Sophisticated Stacey loves to signal for the check at restaurants. Back at Ed’s, Claudia takes the futon in Stacey’s room leaving Dawn the pullout couch in the living room, where she frets all night about burglars coming through the fire escape.
“And guess what happened in the morning. My friends deserted me.”
Yeah, how rude of them to actually want to enjoy their vacation. Claudia wants to shop before her classes start and Stacey has her sitting job. They invite her to come with them to Laine’s, but she refuses. She’s also offended that the guy letting them stay in his apartment and apparently shelling out for restaurant meals for seven wants to go to work for a few hours, mentioning in a snide little aside “(He’s a workaholic.)” Cram it, Carrot Cake.
And then Kristy, of all people, takes pity on her and comes to hang out with her. In the apartment. All day. Props, K. Ron.
Like, okay, I live in Chicago, but I get that cities make a lot of people nervous. And I get that Dawn probably felt pressured to go with everyone-although since they keep saying she’s such an INDIVIDUAL, you’d think maybe she could be more honest with the best friends in the world-but going and then being rude to your hosts and expecting your friends to sit inside an apartment with you all day-not okay.
Chapter 5
Stacey ❤ NYC. She wakes up (Dawn is apparently sound asleep, even though she claims she slept not a single week) to have some quiet time with her dad. He asks about her plans and when she says she’ll be with the Harringtons, he says he might go into the office for a few hours.
Stacey is mightily offended that her father isn’t just going to sit in the apartment and wait for her, even though he says if she didn’t have plans he would stay home. Stacey pouts more about how the man paying her Bloomingdales’ bills can’t also be at her beck and call all day.
Stacey claims for a day in the city with two small kids she’ll be wearing her “grubbies” and Claudia calls her out on owning no such thing. Sadly, we don’t get a description of the casual ensemble she selects, although she does note the Harrington kids are still overdressed, but at least not in white. Mrs. Harrington is apparently so fabulously dressed that Sophisticated Stacey gawks at her. She says they “may be able to spend some time with the children next week,” because Ann has some weird fetish for wealthy-but-emotionally-distant British parents. She also gives them a wad of cash for expenses. She then tells them to mind “Claudia and Mary Anne,” so burn on you, Miss NYC.
They head off to Central Park and Stacey and Mary Anne are “enchanted” with the kids, who are polite but not stuck up and have “wonderful accents.” Their characterization is pretty dumb, but miles ahead of Princess Victoria. They go to the petting zoo, which Stacey claims “costs just ten cents per person, and always will,” and my brief Googling suggests “always” ended some time ago. They buy inflatable toys on sticks, which thrills Alistaire because he saw a picture of an inflatable-toys-on-sticks vendor in a book he has about Central Park. They people-watch, so they can get their first sighting of the man in a rain hat and sunglasses, and Stacey’s mind is blown by such wild, NYC-only sights as two little boys dressed identically who were NOT twins and a baby in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Truly, it is a majestic and wild place. They also see the Alice in Wonderland statue, providing possibly the worst illustration in the book.
Shudder.
Chapter 6
Claudia entry about how wonderful Falny will be and how she’s too excited to sleep. (I really wish they would just call it the Arts League or something. Falny is a stupid acronym and it offends my spellcheck.) Also, in this book she seems to have problems not only with spelling but with missing periods at the end of sentences. There’s a Rizzo from Grease joke there.
Then in the first paragraph of the chapter proper she declares Falny was the worst mistake of her life.
So, okay. I’m not an artist, but I’m a writer, and I’ve been in some painful writing workshops, where I thought some really awful stuff got glossed over and I got raked over the coals for “trying to be smart.” I’ve also had the feeling that I can’t really do anything else. So I can sympathize a lot with how Claudia actually feels. But it’s still really tiresome to read. Also, knowing that Ann apparently still has a grudge against a college professor who made her draw boxes and failed to recognize Ann’s genius and creativity definitely puts a sour spin on this whole thing for me. I feel bad that it’s another one where I come off as mean to Claudia, but it’s a really annoying plot.
ANYWAY. Before she goes, Claudia fantasizes that McKenzie Clarke will look like Santa, which seems. . .odd in light of her daydreaming about whether he was married. Well, whatever floats your boat, Claudia. YKINMK, and so forth. She goes into a deeper fantasy about how he will take one look at her drawings, deem her a creative genius, become her mentor, and in a few short months she will-
And Stacey wakes her up before we can find out what Claudia actually thought would be her artistic career at thirteen and a half.
Okay, the thing is, I’ve had this same fantasy with people I’ve been in workshops with. But even when I was younger than Claudia, I got that it was a fantasy. Also, for all the time Ann is building up McKenzie Clarke as a major artist, I wish there was at least ONE line about what kind of work he does and why Claudia likes it (or if she’s just progressing to the hipster name-dropping stage.) Like, does he do portraits? Murals? Watercolors? Oils? Realist? Abstract? It just confirms my assumption that art is another thing Ann doesn’t really get.
They arrive at the Arts League and Claudia declares it a “dump,” and I don’t really get her obsession with fancy buildings, since she expected it to look like the Met or something. Mallory creepily, and literally, clings to Claudia’s shirt as they go to the classroom.
They enter the room, see the infamous Heap o’ Boxes, shrug and sit down. HE enters (caps in the text) and does not, in fact, look like Santa. At 9:30 he begins the class without preamble or greeting and says the lesson for the day is to make them focus on dimension and perspective. Some kid asks a question and Claudia and Mallory stop paying attention to squee over the fact that the kid called him “Mac.”
Also-it’s driving me CRAZY that the text can’t decide whether to call him Mac or Mr. Clarke or McKenzie Clarke. Claudia and Mal think it would be super-dibble to be in with Mac and call him Mac, but then Claudia says her parents don’t let her call adults by their first names “unless she knows them really well.” Personally, I think it’s more respectful to call people whatever the hell they want to be called. When I was in my teens and teaching at Vacation Bible School, my co-teacher was a middle-aged woman who insisted the kids call me MISS Marie, and I felt like a Southern belle cartoon mouse or something.
Anyway, Claudia deems the box-drawing assignment boring, but says she’ll do it anyway. Mac comes by and greets them, and is fairly remote and non-chatty. He hands them pencils and erasers, like, did they come to drawing class without those? Whatever. Claudia is sketching quickly and says she doesn’t even need to think about perspective or dimension because she’s been drawing for so long. Meanwhile, Mal is laboriously drawing a line, erasing, drawing, erasing, et cetera.
When Mac comes by, Claudia proudly tells him she’s done.
He studies her drawing, and then says, “You work much too quickly, Miss Kishi. Would you please begin again? You don’t notice that anyone else in the room is finished, do you? Look around the room.”
He leaves, and Claudia freaks out because no one has ever not complimented her art work before. And again, I relate to her a little on this, and it’s genuinely sad when she says “Had I come to New York just to find out that I’m not talented as an artist after all? That couldn’t be true. I’m not good at anything else.” On the other hand, not being the best most special-est in every class is something all creative people have to deal with sooner or later, especially if you go from a small pond to a big one (like an arts school), and I think my sympathy wears thin when I know that none of the BSC girls will ever really have to learn that, because by authorial fiat they ARE the most talented at everything, and will win every contest and prove themselves to every teacher and blah.
The morning goes on, and every time Mac comes by he gives Claudia a variation of the same advice: to slow down, not to rush, and really focus on angles and so forth. I can’t tell if she genuinely doesn’t get what he’s asking, or if she’s just being stubborn and defiant (in later chapters I think it’s definitely the latter.) He tells Mallory she’s doing fine and Claudia freaks out that he means Mallory is better than her.
And again, I sympathize, but the last line leaves a bad taste in my mouth. “By the time we broke for lunch, I was ready to cry. Mal was on top of the world. What had gone wrong?”
Like, I really do empathize with her freaking out, internally. But blaming Mal and treating her like crap is really not cool, and there’s this yucky sentiment that Mal being pleased or succeeding is against the natural order.
Chapter 7
Woo! After that artistic angst I need the sheer sweet lulz of Jessi’s plot. In her journal, she writes about going to an afternoon ballet at Lincoln Center and meeting a. . .boy! (That would be a boy dancer, not a boy “ballerina,” despite what the flap copy says.) His name is Quint, which Jessi deems “romantic” and says he’s good enough to get into Julliard, and we’ll get to that later.
Jessi angsts a little about being embarrassed she slept in and didn’t get up at the crack of dawn to dance, and obviously no one else cares at all. They go over plans for the day-Laine might join Stacey, Mary Anne, and the Harringtons, Claudia and Mal have art class (this is concurrent with Claud’s last chapter) and Kristy is going to take pity on Dawn. She asks Jessi if she wants to come, and Jessi wavers, and Kristy kindly tells her not to worry. “Baby-sitting for Dawn isn’t my idea of a vacation, either.” LOL.
Jessi wants to go to Lincoln Center and see a ballet (and I guess in the pre-internet world, she might not have looked up tickets or schedules in advance, but-eh), but she’s not supposed to go out by herself. What a quandary! So she tags on to Stacey and the rest, hoping their plans will take them near Lincoln Center. They don’t, but Mary Anne takes pity on Jessi and says they can go by there first.
(Also, in 1991 did teenage girls refer to purses/bags as “pocketbooks”? Not where I lived. It’s the second usage in the book.)
Anyway, they arrive and Jessi gasps at the sight, causing Mary Anne to pull a Dawn and panic about rats or roaches. (Jessi even calls her on it.) For some odd reason, Ann decides to list all the buildings at Lincoln Center, which is really odd in a book so spotty about other details. I mean, how excited was the average BSC reader to hear about Avery Fisher Hall or the Vivian Beaumont Theater? Jessi says she just HAS to see a ballet, and talks the others into dropping her off at the theater and picking her up afterwards.
It is a Monday afternoon, so it seems convenient that there is a “special performance,” unless maybe it’s one of those things where you can watch a rehearsal. And even then, those tickets are a lot of baby-sitting hours. Money: another thing Ann doesn’t understand.
But she sees Swan Lake, and conveniently sits next to a boy her own age “with dark curly hair, wide brown eyes, and skin that was just slightly lighter than mine. And he had the long, lithe body of a dancer.” Yeah, “long and lithe” totally describes prepubescent boys. (And I just grossed myself out.) Jessi declares him the most gorgeous guy she’s ever seen.
And sad as it is to say, I’m actually a little jealous than when I gear myself up to battle my social anxiety and go to the theater alone, I NEVER get seated next to cute guys who are enchanted by how much I’m moved by the play. Even when it’s Tom Stoppard! (Yes, my dream romance is to get picked up by a cute single man at a production of Arcadia. The Real Thing would also be acceptable.)
Anyway, Jessi says that boys never notice her, and she never notices boys, and she usually has no idea what to say, but at least here there’s an obvious topic. Wow, Ann, for two sentences that was almost cute and realistic.
Quint says he’s seen the production five times and is “going broke” (I bet!). Jessi asks if he’s a dancer and he turns red, although I would think if he’s worried about his masculine image, when you volunteer you’ve seen a production of Swan Lake five times that ship has probably sailed. (I mean, OBVIOUSLY there’s nothing wrong with men dancing or just enjoying the ballet, but I don’t know why being a ballet fanboy would be less emasculating than being a dancer.)
Jessi says she’s a dancer and Quint admits he is too, and then says he takes lessons on Saturdays and his teacher says he’s good enough to get into Julliard.
And everyone-Quint, his teacher, and Ann-are full of shit, because eleven year olds do not study ballet at Julliard. I remember this being argued, so I actually checked, and nope! The Pre-College Division is strictly music performance, and the Dance Summer Intensive is for ages 15 to 17.
Also, more broadly, any teacher who says casually someone is good enough to get into Julliard is full of shit, because at that level and for the number of students they take, a big part of it is going to be a crapshoot. I went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and I still couldn’t tell you how the hell I got in.
And seriously, this is one of my writing pet peeves, when people do snobby name dropping and it’s WRONG. (Looking at you SO HARD, Aaron Sorkin.) Because the people who it would actually impress are the ones who will recognize it as bullshit.
I would also point out that someone with serious ballet ambitions probably takes more than one class a week.
But Jessi is impressed, and asks when he’s going to audition. In seven years? He says he’s not, and Jessi assumes it’s too expensive, and then he gets all angsty about how she wouldn’t understand how hard it is to be a male dancer, and he has to sneak to his lessons, and it would be so much worse if he went to Julliard “full-time” and Quint, you don’t have to worry about that because you are ELEVEN and it is a COLLEGE.
Jessi tells him if he wants to dance, he should dance, and screw those guys! He shakes his head, but asks for her phone number. She doesn’t remember Laine’s number or have it on her (that seems SUPER safe-does she have Mr. McGill’s work number or anything? They worry about stupid stuff like riding the subway and can’t take basic common sense safety precautions.) Anyway, Quint gives Jessi HIS number, and she spends the rest of the afternoon debating whether or not to call.
Chapter 8
Mallory writes a super upbeat entry for Claudia’s journal project, and then immediately admits she couldn’t tell the truth, because the bad stuff about the day was basically all Claudia. On the other hand, since in the entry she writes about how much Mac loooves her work, with the obligatory “enough bragging,” so I don’t know if she’s being passive-aggressive or dense as fuck. Also, she says she’s in love with Mac, but I think she means that in a non-creepy teacher-crush kind of way. That’s not really her gig. (Although I would bet good money she’ll eventually get one of those J.D. Salinger-loving creative writing teachers and the crush will be painful, epic, and eventually result in a story about a chipmunk who loves too much.)
Back at Falny, back at the boxes. Mal is a little dismayed, because she wants to draw illustrations for her stories. “I needed to learn to drawn bunnies and mice and fat mushrooms and cute little bugs. I needed to learn to draw cats wearing clothes. That kind of thing.” There’s really nothing I can add to that.
But she does her best with the boxes (maybe I don’t remember, but I feel like by the age eleven or thirteen I had picked up on the idea that sometimes you have to do the fundamentals first?). She says it’s very hard, and she hasn’t taken serious art classes like Claudia or done anything like this before. She’s embarrassed by how bad her drawing is, and she looks over at Claudia and is impressed both by her accuracy and her speed. “She could sketch quickly, like those artists on TV.” Huh? The only artists I think of as always sketching quickly are caricaturists and court reporters. What do these girls watch (besides I Love Lucy)? But Mac doesn’t praise Claudia; he tells her to slow down and focus, and tells Mallory her work is good. (My guess is that he said that in the most non-committal, “you’re doing just fine, Miss Pike,” way possible, but nuance is lost on these girls.) Mal says at first Claudia looked hurt, but the second time she looked like she wanted to kill Mallory. Mallory understands that Claudia is hurt because she’s supposed to be “the artist” of the BSC, but she understandably bristles when Claudia calls her “teacher’s pet.” She wishes Mac would compliment Claudia a little, just to even things up.
By the end of the day, “Claud couldn’t seem to do anything right” except be in a right snit. Mallory, with her utter lack of social skills, tries to be “cheerful” by saying “Isn’t Falny great?” which understandably doesn’t appease Claudia. (I mean, Claudia is being a brat-none of this is Mal’s fault, but again, Mal is either being passive-aggressive or willfully obtuse.)
Mal tries to hail a taxi and Claudia grabs her and scolds her for looking like a tourist.
A few hours later, at the McGills, they get organized to go to Chinatown, and amazingly, Mr. McGill will even let them take the subway there! (Ann is so snotty about public transit.) Mal and Claudia engage in very mature tongue-sticking-out/ignoring each other/calling each other ex-friends. At the subway, Mallory shrieks because the entrance smells, and I don’t really judge Claudia for telling her to grow up. Dawn makes a huge fuss about entering and tells Mal that she’s going to make out her will that night. Ugh-it’s just, I would sympathize with Dawn’s anxiety so much more if she didn’t seem so determined to make everyone else miserable, too. To Dawn’s amazement, they survive to exit at Chinatown. Mr. McGill must be so sick of her, but it’s kind of cute that Dawn positions herself next to Kristy “who may be short, but she’s fearless.” D’aw, Kristy is Hermia!
(Now I want Shakespeare/BSC fusion!)
Mal feels like she’s in a different world, and Claudia calls her a dweeb. Mr. McGill says kindly Chinatown does feel completely different than the rest of the city.
It's different, all right.
They cram into a tiny store and buy tons of souvenirs (and Mal is a pretty sweet sister to buy a toy for each of her siblings.) After wandering around, they go to dinner, and the clueless BSC snootily judge the place as a dive, because it is small and not fancy. But Ed knows his stuff, and the food is fantastic. The waiters don’t speak much English, and for some reason Stacey tries to tell them about the BSC. It would be much more believable from Kristy.
Mal eats her fortune cookies and observes they are more like advice than fortunes, and she slips one about how to get alone with people on Claudia’s plate, which is Mary Anne worthy passive-aggression. (And how damn lazy is Ann she can’t even write the text of a fake fortune?) And NOW I want BSC/Freaky Friday fics, where they randomly body-swap, so, Stacey has to deal with Mallory's hair and nose. Claudia calls her a teacher’s pet again, and they all cab it home.
Whoo! I’m aiming to do this in three parts again, so up next we have Kristy’s “special friend” (gosh the flap copy is awful), espionage and intrigue for Stacey and Mary Anne, and Dawn’s very first gay boyfriend.
